Jacob's two wives -- the Gentiles and Israel

I have no doubt that in the two wives, as I have said, we have
the Gentiles and Israel: Rachel first loved on the earth, but not
possessed; but Leah the fruitful mother of children. Rachel had
children also afterwards on the earth. Rachel, as representing the
Jews, is the mother of Joseph, and later of Benjamin, that is, of a
suffering Christ glorified among the Gentiles, while rejected of
Israel; and of a reigning Christ, the son of his mother's sorrow,
but of his father's right hand.

The deceiver deceived, but preserved according to God's promise

Jacob's personal history is the sad tale of deceit and wrong
done to him; but God, as He had promised, preserving him
throughout. What a difference from Eliezer and Abraham, where the
power and character of the Holy Ghost is seen! Here providence
preserves, but it is Jacob's history. He is bitterly deceived as he
had deceived, but preserved according to promise. At the return of
Jacob the hosts of God came to meet him. He receives a new and
wondrous proof of God's mighty and gracious care, which should have
recalled Bethel to him. But this does not remove his terror. He
must anew use the means of unbelief, and sends children and wives
and all on before, and presents after presents to appease Esau; but
his strength was not there. God would not leave him in the hands of
Esau, but He deals with him Himself. He wrestles with him,
sustaining at the same time his faith in the wrestling; and, after
making him feel his weakness, and that for all his life, gives him,
in weakness, the place and part of victor. He is a prince with God,
and prevails with God and with men -- victory in conflict with a
God who is dealing with him, but no revelation of, or communion
with Him.

The dealings of God with a soul who does not walk with Him

This is a wonderful scene: the dealings of God with a soul that
does not walk with Him. It is not, however, the calm communion of
Abraham with Jehovah: Abraham intercedes for others, instead of
wrestling for himself. So also, though God gives Jacob a name and
so far recognises his relationship with Himself, He does not reveal
to Jacob His name, as He had done to Abraham. Jacob, too, still
employs his deceitful ways; for he had no thought of going to Seir,
as he said. But he is delivered from Esau, as from Laban, and at
last establishes himself at Shechem, buying lands where he ought to
have remained a stranger. God removes him out of it, but by strange
and humbling circumstances; still God's fear on the nations
preserves him. He is not yet back to the point where God had given
him the promises and assured the blessing; that was at
Bethel. Here, however, he was able to build an altar, using, at the
same time, the name which exalted his own position, and which took
the ground of the blessing which had been granted to him; an act of
faith, it is true, but which confined itself to the blessing,
instead of rising up to the Blesser. This, indeed, he was not
properly able to do yet. God was dealing with him, and he was, in a
measure, thinking on God; but proper communion was not there: so is
it in like case with us.

However, God led him onward, and
now tells him to go up to the place whence he had set out, and
there build an altar, where he had entered into covenant with God,
the faithful God, who had been with him all the way in which he
went. But what a discovery is made here! He must now meet God
Himself, and not simply be dealt with for his good -- God's name
still unknown, no full revelation of Him. And this is a great
difference. Now he must meet Him.

He remembers -- he knew
it well, although he paid no attention to it until he had to meet
God -- there were false gods in his family. Meeting God Himself --
not in secret and mysterious struggle, but face to face, so to
speak -- brings all to light. He purifies himself, and the false
gods are removed, and he goes up to Bethel. There God reveals
Himself openly to him, in grace making known His name, unasked, to
him as to Abraham, and confers upon him anew the name of Israel, as
if he had not received it before. Rachel gives birth to him who,
child of his mother's sorrow, is the son of his father's right hand
(remarkable type of Christ the Lord); for this is, figuratively,
the establishment of the promise in power in his person, though the
former standing of Israel, represented by Rachel, must disappear;
but her remembrance is kept up in the land.